POINT LOOKOUT, Mo. - The Oklahoma City volleyball team snatched its first win of the season in the conference opening match on Friday night in four sets over College of the Ozarks who played its first Sooner Athletic Conference competition since joining the league this summer. 

Oklahoma City 3, College of the Ozarks 1

Set 1: 26-24
Set 2: 22-25
Set 3: 25-9
Set 4: 25-20

STAR OF THE SHOW: In Ruby Kelley's 2024 debut the senior standout did not miss a beat tabbing a double-double with 14 kills and 13 digs while having eight total blocks. Her kills and blocks both stood as game-high's. 

THE RUNDOWN

Set One
The lead shifted sides early on in the first set as Oklahoma City settled in with a 4-0 run as the freshman duo of Grace Smallwood and Bailey Lowder added a kill each to take a lead of 7-5. Lowder helped give OCU the upper hand at 16-15 with another kill as that was the last time in the opening set that the Bobcats would lead. Oklahoma City grew its advantage to as much as 21-16 before College of the Ozarks stormed back to tie it at 24. The Stars put the oppositions 5-1 run to bed by earning the next two points on Bobcat errors to win the opener 26-24. 

Set Two
Oklahoma City saw its lead stand as large as four points as the Stars led from the opening serve all the up until the Bobcats tied it at 18 all. The Bobcats caught fire and strung together a 7-1 run which allowed College of the Ozarks to go up 23-19 as they would go on to win the second set 25-22. 

Set Three
After dropping the second set OCU came out scorching as Ruby Kelley notched the opening kill followed by three consecutive kills by Rylee Steward leading to a 5-0 score to begin the third set. Oklahoma City did not stop there as Smallwood and Kelley tallied five kills in the set while Steward went for four. The Stars finished with a 7-0 run to win the third set 25-9. 

Set Four
The two teams traded blows until about halfway through when Oklahoma City turned the tides with a 5-0 run as Kelley led the way with an ace and a kill giving OCU a 16-12 lead. Trailing 19-16, College of the Ozarks never got the deficit to go lower than three as Oklahoma City went up by as much as six as the final four points were on three of Kelley's kills to end the match with a 25-20 win. 


GAME NOTES

• Oklahoma City wins its conference-opener for the third straight season after defeating the newest SAC member College of the Ozarks on Friday night.
• Three Stars finished with a double-double on the night which includes Natalie Adams, Ruby Kelley and Grace Smallwood.
• Natalie Adams came away with a game-high 26 assists making it the 29th time in Adams career she has gone over 20 assists in a single match. Adams also tallied a season-high 15 digs to complete her double-double performance which is the first time she has went for double-digit digs this season.
• Grace Smallwood notched double-digit kills for the third time in seven games as the freshman went for 10 kills and a career-high 18 digs to complete her third double-double of the season.
• Kaitlyn Dunlap made history by entering the 1000 dig club at OCU after tabbing a team-high 22 digs on the night giving her 1,019 total on her career. Dunlap 
• Jaiden Downey tied a career-high with 17 assists which a set a season-best by passing her previous games total of 16 which came against Cumberland.

COMING UP
Oklahoma City picks up play on Saturday, Sept. 7 as the Stars take on John Brown at 1 PM inside Bill George Arena in Siloam Springs, Ark.

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